Focus on Families: Divorce and Adults

Divorce is one of the most stressful life events a person can experience. This is true regardless of whether you are the person who sought the divorce (the leaver) or the person who was unprepared for divorce (the left).

The spouse who is the leaver often experiences a heightened sense of remorse and guilt while the left spouse may be unprepared for the marriage to end. The more sudden and unexpected the announcement, the more stressful the initial emotional reaction.

The decision to divorce is typically made with ambivalence, uncertainty and confusion. It is a difficult step. The family identity changes, and the identities of the individuals involved change as well.

For example, if your family identity was one of a close knit group, one that enjoyed sporting events and hobbies together, that identity is going to change. Your personal identity will change in that you will no longer be a husband or wife or married person. If these identities or roles were important to you, you may experience grief from the loss.

Grief over the loss or death of a marriage is somewhat like the grief process described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (1969) in On Death and Dying. That is, you may experience feelings of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance, although there will likely be no order or pattern to your feelings of grief.

For example, you may begin the divorce process with a feeling of acceptance but later find yourself sinking into depression or becoming filled with rage.

Mourning and a sense of loss are common, even if you are the person wanting the divorce. Even if you no longer love your partner, you may still mourn the loss of the dream of living happily ever after.

If you have children, you may grieve because you will see less of them, or you may feel guilty about the changes in their lives that will be caused by the divorce.

Grief is normal, but if the intensity of grieving is too great or the grieving period seems to go on too long, then seeking counseling may be helpful and appropriate.

Couples facing divorce soon realize that divorce is not an event with a clear beginning and an end, it is a process. This process often begins long before any legal action and may last for years afterward, especially if children are involved.

According to Paul Bohannan (1970), the divorce process consists of several overlapping stages or experiences.

It does not end the relationship except in those cases in which there are no children involved. The legal divorce typically involves developing a parenting plan, including who the children will live with most of the time and the division of property. The parenting plan will include such things as shared parenting, sometimes called joint custody, which means that the parents will jointly make decisions regarding their children.

This is sometimes confused with joint physical custody, which means the children will divide their time more or less equally between the two parents. Sole custody means that the children live with only one of the parents most of the time, and that parent will make most of the parenting decisions.

Unfortunately, rather than bringing closure, the adversarial process related to legal divorce may cause or increase anger, hurt and bitterness.

It is common to feel out of control and helpless as the attorneys and courts take over some of your decisions. If you wish to have more control over the decisions, make this position clear to your lawyer. You also may want to consider using mediation rather than the traditional adversarial approach to dividing your property and developing a parenting plan.

Mediation, a fairly new alternative, is designed to help divorcing couples make decisions together with a trained mediator who may also be a lawyer. The mediator will help you and your ex-spouse learn to negotiate with each other as well as learn to accept your new roles as ex-spouses.

For some, this task is completed long before the legal divorce while others may struggle with emotional issues related to the divorce for years.

Divorce may require each former partner to learn new financial skills. If tasks such as organizing and paying taxes, monthly bills and insurance had been handled by your spouse, you will now have to learn to complete them independently.

You may no longer feel comfortable around your married friends. The group of mutual friends you developed as a married couple might feel quite torn about the divorce. Because they may not be comfortable taking sides, they may not appear to be an active support group for you.

Divorce may also alter a persos feelings about relationships. Fear of relationships and feelings of vulnerability are common among divorcing people. Dating may be particularly difficult for you if you have not dated in years. The combinations of fear and feelings of vulnerability may lead you to avoid social involvement.

If you are dealing with these sorts of feelings, there are things you can do to help rebuild your support network.

Consider joining support groups such as Parents Without Partners. These groups can help keep you involved and will give you people to talk to who can relate to your situation.

Many divorcing people find themselves making new friends following divorce. In the long run, this may be less stressful than trying to maintain contacts with your "old" friends.

The psychic divorce also should include developing some insight into why you married and why you divorced. Paul Bohannan suggests that marriage should be an act of desperation — a last resort. Marriage should not be used to solve your problems or to offset your weaknesses. All too often, those are the reasons people marry.

It is especially important to think about these issues because people tend to remarry rather quickly, and they often marry again for the same poor reasons they married the first time.

People tend to divorce for any of a number of reasons but essentially they divorce because they were unable to establish a good marriage or because they were unwilling to settle for a bad marriage. Trying to determine who is to blame for the divorce is not a healthy way to spend your time. A better use of your time would be to spend it on adapting to divorce.

Marston, S. (1994). The divorced parent: Success strategies for raising your children after separation. New York, NY: Pocket Books.

Coleman, M., & Ganong, L.H. (1995). "Family reconfiguring following divorce." In S. Duck, & J.T. Wood (Eds.), Confronting Relationship Challenges (pp. 73-108). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Hopper, J. (1993). "The rhetoric of motives in divorce." Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, 801-813.

Johnston, J.R., & Campbell, L.E.G. (1988). Impasses of divorce: The dynamics and resolution of family conflict. New York, NY: The Free Press.